PROFESSOR RECEIVES GRANTS TOTALING NEARLY $900,000

Dr. Adelaide Heyde Parsons, professor of English and secondary education at Southeast Missouri State University, is the author of three grant proposals that have been funded for a total of nearly $900,000.

A United States Information Agency grant for $663,963 will bring Central American students to Southeast to study and share their culture, language knowledge and skills with the community.

A $198,934 Project Interact Goes Bilingual grant will continue work begun to benefit Spanish-speaking students and their teachers in Missouri, and a state grant of $15,167 will help Spanish-speaking, at-risk students in Missouri schools.

Under the Information Agency grant, 12 young Central American professionals will come to Southeast to attend classes, experience U.S. culture and volunteer their services to the community. The students represent Honduras, Belize, Costa Rica, Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. They are pursuing undergraduate degrees in journalism, anthropology, teaching English to speakers of other languages, early childhood development, elementary education and secondary education.

The students begin their two-and-a-half-year program at Southeast in January. The program calls for students to have extended contact with Americans, so they will live with American students in Southeast residence halls and will have host families and faculty mentors. They will also be involved in volunteer activities including Habitat for Humanity and Headstart, and will use their language skills to work with migrant workers in the Bootheel and with teachers in the Project INTERACT program.